Arrival of our bundle of joy.

Hi all,

We were blessed with a bouncing baby girl on the 24th of April 2008 at 2:48pm. Our bundle of joy weighed 4.2kg at birth, both of us are doing great. Pls take this as a formal notice of my absence from blogging for a while, at least until my maternity leave is over. Gotta spend some time with my jewel. Please keep visiting and I will get back to all as soon as I resume blogging.

Thanks for all the messages and comments that you have left me; I am quite blessed to have such wonderful friends.

Shalom!

Coping with challenges in marriage.

There are various ways to cope with marital challenges, depending on the challenges you are faced with. Coping also depends on your level of tolerance and that of your partner. You must know how far to go especially with a highly volatile person with whom little things cause friction.

Ways to cope:
Be prayerful
Be matured in your approach to resolving issue.
Understand each other
Be calm and composed even when the situation is aggravating.
Don’t build thick skin, be free and fare while considering your partner’s view of the situation.
Finally, withdraw if peace is not immediately realistic and re-address the issue when the situation is calm.

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Challenges in marriage.

Marriage is an institution created by God simply for a man and woman, children are addition. And for a marriage to succeed, both man and wife must learn to cope with the various challenges they may come across because after all said and done, they started the race alone and they will still be alone together after the children had all grown and gone away and the family members are tired of interfering in their affairs.

Marriage itself is a challenge, to the man because he has to make decisions that may either make or mar his family, and the wife because in marriage, a woman is always at the receiving end of things, especially the negative/bad ones. In other words, every married couple need to know the kind of challenges their marriage is faced with and how best to deal with it. Your marital challenges may be different from mine.

Challenges from my point of view are:
Marital adjustment
Adjusting to married life itself could be difficult for someone so used to be on his/her own, a loner. A good time lady or man may find marriage confining and having to report back to the home at a certain time or having to give account of his daily activities to another person even though a loved one totally unacceptable to his/her way of life.

Children
How many children do we have?
Do we start a family right away or wait a few years?
Do I even want to have any children at all?
Unfortunately most married couples don’t discuss such issues before embarking on marriage and even if it was discussed, one of them could decide to have a change of mind probably as a result of situations arising that were otherwise not foreseen before marriage. Some discussed it, come to an agreement only for one of the parties to change their mind after being in marriage. This is a challenge that must not be handled with levity, if such a situation arises in any marriage it will be best for the couple to tread with caution.

Family upbringing/Background
A lot of people don’t think that this has anything to do with marriage, but it does. A man who was raised in a home where only a man make decisions and the woman is just to accept without question will expect that his wife be subservient, and if the wife refuses to be dictated to then problem will arise. So also a person from a rich background marrying someone from a lesser, one may be prudent with spending while the other may be quite extravagant and has to have everything that money could buy even though such things are unnecessary. This challenge is not an issue you sit your spouse down and discuss before marriage, it usually crop up and so require a great deal of patience to cope with.

Accepting new family ties
Problems arise where the inlaws try to be a part of your family. Decisions about which family member can come to visit or stay, how much to give a family member who has requested assistance, what sort of gift to give at festive time and so on if not probably dealt with may lead to either the husband or the wife choosing to side with his/her family, thinking the other partner is unfair to them.

Spiritual
This is the greatest challenge a woman or man could face in marriage. You see, for a believer to be married to an unbeliever, it takes a whole lot of grace for such a marriage to be successful. First because they will never be able to have a walk with God unless the unbelieving partner repent. In a Christian marriage, devotion to God require spending time together to worship, praying together (morning devotions etc), digging into the words of God, discussing about areas of your christian life that need to be touched so that things can fall into place for your family. Please take time out to read 1 Cor. 7:12-16.

Watch out for "Coping with Challenges in Marriage."

Perseverance

Perseverance, according to various definitions from Dictionary.com is:

• Steady persistence in a course of action, a purpose, a state, etc., esp. in spite of difficulties, obstacles, or discouragement.
  
• Persistent determination
  
• And, biblically a continuance in a state of grace to the end, leading to eternal salvation.

It is therefore with utmost joy and gladness of heart that I received the Perseverance Award from Channelofhealing. The blog has been a great source of inspiration and encouragement to me. MumsDadsChildren has also received other awards from COH in times past and I must say a big thank you to Isaiah of Joie de Vivre who presented the award to Channelofhealing.

Indeed givers never lack!

Here are the recipients of this award;
NaijaECash
Nuggets of Gold

SermonAlive

A proverbs 31 woman wannabe
Nijawife

A Dysfunctional child.

In every home there are needs that are very essential to the daily existence of our children. If some of these needs are not met as at when required then a lot of things could go wrong. There is always the physical, emotional and the spiritual need and when any of these is lacking there tends to be Loss of trust in the parents, bridge in communication and listening, loss of respect for parents, lots of skeletons in the cupboard (keeping of secrets), tendency to ignore inappropriate behaviour, loss of feelings etc.

In a family, where the physical needs of the children like food, clothing, shelter etc are not met either as a result of the parents inability to provide because of unemployment, sickness or because either of the parent has the sole responsibility of raising the children alone (single parenthood), the children suffer unduly and has to look for a means to an end all by themselves. Such children are often seen on the streets begging for alms, involved in underage prostitution, picking pockets, snatching of handbags etc.

Emotional need is much more complex and usually very difficult and more subtle to detect. It is the need for acceptance, affirmation and love from parents or guardian. Most children who feel they do not have the love of their parents, grow up to unstable, unloving, they lack emotions, self esteem, confidence and they tend to be impaired/dysfunctional persons when the grow up. The results of this; the children often have behaviour disorders, they are poor in their academics, they don’t mix or make friends easily, they fight at every given opportunity, and they tend to be loners.

Finally the spiritual need, as earlier discussed in a previous post, the often missing dimension in marriage, so also it is with our children. They must be given the opportunity to know God and serve him, if you are godly, then teach your children to also obey (Eph. 6:1; 1 Tim. 3:4), give them the necessary guidance and direction on how to know God and be disciplined into a mature relationship with him. Remember that parents must teach God’s truth at all times Deut. 4:9; 32:46). Failure to do this can result in untold hardship as a result of loses of direction and focus.

Our children are our greatest assets, our most valuable investments and also the most valuable fruit of the kingdom of God; let us therefore faithfully bring them up so that we can be confident that our efforts from age 0-9months and beyond will not be in vain (Prov. 22:6).

Entrecard Discretion Required (EDR).

Sexual Intimacy, this was originally supposed to be between a man and a woman, correct me if I’m wrong. But is there any intimacy in a threesome, foursome or whatever some perverted minds chose to call it. I was on a blog today, featured on one of the entrecard blogs and I was so disgusted I just decided to stop the whole EC business.

Usually when I drop cards on other blogs, I always make it a point of duty to visit the blog’s featured blog, but guess where I found myself, a site that not only promote sex between couples, lesbianism, homosexuality, but also gave graphic description of her escapades. I thought such things are supposed to be restricted to people that fancy them rather than being openly displayed in the name of EC advertising.

I am totally outraged and disappointed because I felt that the whole EC business is supposed to be respectable. And believe me that may not be the only site/blog in that category. So be very careful when dropping cards, accepting adverts and placing adverts on other sites, because some of those blogs are not listed under the appropriate category, they have refreshingly nice name, a tame title and description, you may not suspect what they are about until you read them.

Have a blessed weekend.

Forgiveness.

Easter is a time to reflect on the death of Christ and also celebrate his resurrection. He died that we may have life and have it in abundance. We all need to remember His free gift of forgiveness and likewise give this out to our families, friends, neighbours and loved ones. His death is an open check already prepared for us, even when we are yet to know him, that anytime we call to him for forgiveness, he is ever ready to forgive us.

We need to have the spirit of forgiveness. We need to stop holding people for the offence they have committed against us. It is important to forgive others so that we can be forgiven and free our minds from the burden of bitterness, anger, resentment and often times grudges that come with unforgiving spirit. When we forgive, we will be able to sleep better and go out of our way to show kindness and love to the person that was forgiven.

Forgiveness is important in marriage even though it hurts, most especially when it must be extended to a husband or wife who doesn’t deserve it, who hasn’t earned it, who may misuse it. It is also hard to forgive in a marriage tense with past troubles, tormented by fears of rejection and humiliation, and torn by suspicion and distrust. But forgive we must in other for us to have God’s kind of marriage and a home that radiates the perfect love of God.

With his death on the cross, God has paid the terrible price that is necessary for our forgiveness. Knowing beforehand that forgiveness, which is our greatest need, may be too costly and the price too much for us to pay sent us a Savior to redeem us. We must learn to forgive and forget because whatever God forgives, he forgets.
To err is human
To forgive is divine.